2 Veteran Limo Converters Scrub For `Surgery` On A Lincoln

SPRINGFIELD, MO. — Limousines can be made from any kind of auto. Gary Dabney, a partner in DaBryan Coach Builders Inc., drives a stretch Ford Bronco.

This is a story of the making of a limousine.

From inside a cement block building came sounds of metal buzz saws and the hiss of welding, pounding and pneumatic tools.

Over the metal-working clatter there was country music, as John Byers and Mike Bushong prepped for major surgery on a $30,000 Lincoln Town Car. The four-door sedan would have its 18-foot-long body cut in two and extended 5 feet.

This one, however, would not have a moon roof, which is the push-button-operated, sliding hatch over the rear seats. Through it, a limo rider can glance at the moon. ``Or get rained on,`` said a limousine-factory wag.

Byers and Bushong rolled their tool cabinet alongside the white car, which not long ago came off the line at the Lincoln factory in Wixom, Mich., near Detroit. It still showed the stickers and grease-pencil markings from Wixom.

The first thing they did was remove the rear doors. Then Byers and Bushong covered the body of the car, using duct tape and industrial shrouds over the windows; it`s not unlike a person being prepped for surgery. The gasoline line was severed and sealed.

``One of the first things we do is haul away the drive shaft,`` said Bushong. That part is later extended, in a tricky maneuver, to accommodate the additional 5 feet.

In the cutting, the Lincoln is kept from collapsing by braces in the front and along the sides and car jacks holding up the rear.

The big cut is made behind the front seat, the torch going down the support posts between the front and back doors. Sometimes they cut the car twice, aft of the front seat and before the quarter panel. Called a double-cut, it is a variation done for greater privacy and security, Dabney said.

``With a double-cut, you cut the rear-door frame and move it forward, and that moves the rear seat back,`` he said.

Limo passengers, thus, cannot be seen through the rear windows. It also makes it easier to get into the car because there is more room in front of the seat.

A double-cut still extends the car by 5 feet-54 inches behind the front seat and 6 around the quarter panel. The traditional single-cut limousine is more of a touring car, for people such as politicians who want to see what they`re passing.

The operation on the single-cut limo began at 6:30 a.m. and was over by 9:10.

Before it is finished, a DaBryan limo is taken to three buildings in Springfield. From metal working, the Lincoln, now 23 feet long, goes next door, where the body is buffed and sanded and the roof covered with fiber glass. That strengthens it and provides a good base for painting.

``Can you imagine how hard this was to do the first time?`` Dabney mused as he watched Bushong and Byers measuring the 60-inch cut. ``The first time we did it, we took a `78 Town Car, we paid $12,000 for it, and took it in my back yard and cut it and looked at it.``

They worked on the car all day before the dimensions came out right.

On this morning in the metal-working shop, Byers and Bushong were not having an easy time, either.

``Oh no,`` said Byers. ``I`m 59 and seven-eighths,`` as he measured the width of the cut on his side of the car.

``I`m 60,`` said Bushong. ``We have a tolerance of one-eighth of an inch.``

Adjusting the braces that held the two sections of the car together, they jiggled the rear section until both sides measured 5 feet even.

Byers, who is from Springfield, and Bushong, from Seymour, 40 miles to the east, may know how to turn a car into a limo. But neither knows what it`s like to ride in one.

``I never have (ridden in one),`` said Byers, who has worked for DaBryan for eight years. Bushong, who has worked there three years, nodded in agreement.

Does Byers get a charge out of cutting up a Lincoln Town Car? ``Aw no, I`m used to it. Guess I`ve been here too long.``